there's a few places south on 169 north of belle plaine..... not the one in the yellow quonset hut but the one across the road and up the valley from it i seem to recall having unpasturized if you get to them day times, when they're presssing, but most places are reticent out of food safety concerns.

otherwise i've gotten it from friends or used (with great success) the glass gallon jugs at the grocery (indian summer?) and less success but still tasty co-op bought seasonal cider. if you know the folks at the grocery they *might* be willing to let you buy the cider at discount the day it "expires" since you dont' care that it'll be "bad" know some folks who've had success with this in stopping in every 2 days and talking to the manager, but haven't done so myself.

idris_arslanian wrote:Does anyone happen to have a cider press, or should we get together an do another group project?

My brother-in-law up in Forest Lake has one. It came with the house.It gets a big workout every fall squishing apples. Well, more like every other fall.Seems his trees produce a much bigger crop on the even years.Made 61 gallons of cider a few years back.That was before a storm left him with only 2 producing trees.His 6 new trees are a few years away from putting out large volumes.

I'm sure he would lend it out. But I think it would be much more fun to make one.-mark-

oh i did rhubarb by hand. it kind is a lil chilly but works VERY well.

chop the stuff into ~1/2" chunks, and freeze it. freezing destroys the cell walls enough to really let it juice well. i then put it into a press bag and squeezed. that's the cold part. the reccomended method is to put it between two 2x4s with a door hinge on one side and squeeze that way.

on the natural yeast, yeah, it can be *bad* news. the traditional method is to innoculate with yeast inherent to the barrels from last years batch that worked, and discard barrels that produced bad results. n.b. you were also getting useful things from teh bad barrels, like vinegar, so not an entire waste, unless it smelled BAD, in which case, mmm toxins.

I like the idea for freezing the rhubarb. I'll have to give that a shot. I'd still like to make a press now though, and a mill maybe later for the fall apple harvest.

In response to wild yeasts, I just don't see the point in risking getting a bad strain when it's so damned easy, and cheap to use lab cultured yeasts, especially if you are just getting started. It's not worth the frustration.

imho the ONLY reason to use wild yeast is historical reproduction brewing. *everything* yeasty is available if you look hard enough in cultured form.

that said a lot of historic brewers use cultured versions.

it's as easy to build the mill with the press, or at least design it in. iirc you want to look at food safe epoxies or polyruathanes for the plywood upper hopper. iv'e got plans kicking around for a press somewhere.....